Global Family Office Report 2025: What the Data Reveals for Asia-Pacific Principals

Seventy-three percent of family offices globally plan to increase allocations to private markets over the next two years, according to Ocorian's 2025 Global Family Office Report — a finding that carries direct implications for principals managing capital across Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Gulf. The report, drawn from a survey of senior decision-makers at single and multi-family offices spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, offers one of the more granular snapshots of where institutional-grade private wealth is moving and why. For Asia-Pacific principals navigating compressed public market returns, tightening regulatory frameworks, and intensifying succession pressures, the data is not merely interesting — it is operationally relevant.

If you sit on an investment committee, oversee a family governance structure, or advise a principal on jurisdictional strategy, the 2025 report surfaces tensions that are already live in your conversations. The gap between what family offices say they prioritise and what their governance structures can actually execute is widening. Understanding where that gap sits — and how peer offices are closing it — is precisely the kind of intelligence that separates reactive allocation from deliberate strategy.

Private Markets Allocation: The 73% Consensus and What Drives It

The headline figure from Ocorian's report is the 73% of family offices intending to grow private markets exposure, but the composition of that intent matters as much as the number itself. Private equity — particularly co-investments and direct deals — leads the preference, followed by private credit and infrastructure. Real assets, including timberland and agriculture, are gaining traction among offices seeking inflation-linked, long-duration returns that sit outside the volatility of listed markets. For Asia-Pacific offices, the structural appeal of private markets is compounded by the relative depth of deal flow in Southeast Asia's growth economy corridor.

The report also notes that 61% of respondents cite illiquidity management as their primary operational challenge when scaling private markets allocations. This is not a theoretical concern. Family offices — unlike institutional endowments — face irregular liquidity events tied to business sales, generational transfers, and philanthropic commitments. Building a private markets book that can absorb a capital call cycle without forcing secondary sales requires treasury discipline that many offices are still developing. Singapore's Variable Capital Company (VCC) structure, introduced by MAS in 2020, has emerged as a practical vehicle for housing these allocations, offering sub-fund segregation, re-domiciliation flexibility, and a tax-efficient wrapper recognised across ASEAN treaty networks.

"73% of family offices globally plan to increase allocations to private markets over the next two years — but 61% cite illiquidity management as their primary operational challenge in doing so." — Ocorian 2025 Global Family Office Report

Governance and Succession: Where Family Offices Are Most Exposed

Ocorian's report identifies governance deficiency as the single most cited structural risk among surveyed family offices, with 58% acknowledging that their investment policy statement either does not exist in written form or has not been reviewed in more than three years. That figure should concern any principal who has spent time building an allocation framework, only to find it sits in the memory of one or two key individuals rather than in a document the next generation can actually use. Succession planning is no longer a soft topic — it is a risk management function with direct bearing on continuity of mandate and asset preservation.

The report draws a clear correlation between documented governance frameworks and family office longevity. Offices with formal investment committees, written conflict-of-interest policies, and regular third-party governance reviews reported significantly higher confidence in their ability to manage generational transitions. In Hong Kong, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has signalled increasing scrutiny of family office structures that operate without clear accountability frameworks, particularly where the office manages assets on behalf of multiple family branches. The SFC's 2023 consultation on family office regulation and the subsequent rollout of the Open-ended Fund Company (OFC) structure as a vehicle for multi-branch wealth consolidation reflect this regulatory direction. Principals operating through Hong Kong should treat governance documentation not as administrative overhead but as regulatory risk mitigation.

Next-Generation Principals: Priorities That Are Rewriting Allocation Mandates

One of the more consequential findings in the 2025 report concerns the divergence between founding-generation and next-generation principals on allocation philosophy. Forty-four percent of next-gen respondents indicated they would reallocate at least 20% of the family portfolio toward impact-oriented strategies within five years of assuming primary control — a figure that represents a material shift in mandate for offices currently weighted toward traditional private equity and fixed income. This is not idealism; it is a documented preference with portfolio construction consequences that investment teams need to model now, not after the transition occurs.

The report also highlights that next-generation principals are more likely to demand transparency on ESG integration at the manager level, with 67% saying they would terminate a manager relationship if ESG reporting fell below their minimum standard. For Asia-Pacific offices allocating to global managers, this creates a due diligence obligation that runs in both directions: managers must be able to demonstrate credible ESG frameworks, and family offices must be able to articulate what their own standard actually is. MAS's revised guidelines on environmental risk management, applicable to licensed fund managers including those servicing family offices, provide a useful benchmark for structuring these conversations.

Jurisdictional Strategy: Singapore, Hong Kong, and Dubai in Competition

The 2025 report reflects a broader trend visible in capital flow data: family offices are increasingly operating across multiple booking centres rather than consolidating in a single jurisdiction. Singapore retains its position as the preferred Asia-Pacific hub, with MAS's Section 13O and 13U tax incentive schemes continuing to attract single-family office applications despite tightened eligibility criteria introduced in 2023, including minimum AUM thresholds of S$10 million and S$50 million respectively, and mandatory local investment requirements. The tightening of MAS criteria has had a filtering effect, raising the quality floor of Singapore-domiciled family offices while reducing the volume of applications from smaller or less-structured operations.

Hong Kong's OFC structure and its integration with the HKMA's family office development agenda have made the city more competitive for offices managing complex, multi-asset mandates with a Greater China dimension. Dubai's DIFC continues to attract Middle Eastern and South Asian principals, with the DIFC's Family Wealth Centre offering dedicated structuring support and a common law framework that is increasingly familiar to Asian families with global asset footprints. The competitive dynamic between these three centres is producing a market where principals can negotiate more favourable terms with service providers, but it also demands that legal and tax advisers have genuine cross-jurisdictional competence rather than jurisdiction-specific expertise alone.

Operational Priorities: Talent, Technology, and the Cost of Getting Both Wrong

Beyond allocation and governance, the Ocorian report surfaces a persistent operational constraint: talent. Fifty-two percent of family offices surveyed report difficulty retaining investment professionals with private markets expertise, and 39% cite technology infrastructure as a barrier to scaling reporting and risk functions. These are not independent problems. Offices that cannot offer competitive compensation structures, clear career pathways, and modern analytical tools are losing talent to private equity firms and asset managers who can.

The cost of this talent gap is measurable. Offices relying on manual consolidation of multi-custodian portfolios report spending an average of 18 additional hours per month on reporting tasks that automated platforms can perform in a fraction of the time. For a principal paying senior staff rates, that is a direct drag on operational efficiency. The report recommends that family offices treat technology investment not as a discretionary line item but as a prerequisite for governance quality — a position that aligns with MAS's own guidance on technology risk management for licensed entities.

Key Strategic Takeaways for Asia-Pacific Family Office Principals

1. Audit your governance documentation now. If your investment policy statement is more than three years old or exists only in informal form, it represents both a regulatory risk and a succession liability.
2. Model the next-gen allocation shift. If 44% of next-gen principals plan a 20% reallocation toward impact strategies, your current manager roster and mandate documents need to be stress-tested against that scenario.
3. Review your VCC or OFC structure. Both Singapore's VCC and Hong Kong's OFC offer sub-fund flexibility that can accommodate diverging family branch preferences without requiring full structural separation.
4. Stress-test liquidity against private markets commitments. Map your capital call schedule against known liquidity events — business distributions, philanthropic pledges, generational transfers — over a five-year horizon.
5. Formalise your ESG manager standard. Before next-gen principals inherit primary control, establish a written ESG due diligence framework that the investment team can apply consistently.
6. Assess your MAS 13O/13U eligibility annually. The 2023 criteria changes introduced new local investment requirements and tiered AUM thresholds; non-compliance risks incentive clawback and reputational exposure.

What to Watch: Forward-Looking Indicators for 2025–2026

Several regulatory and market developments warrant close monitoring over the next 18 months. MAS is expected to publish updated guidance on the local investment requirements under the 13O and 13U schemes, with particular attention to what qualifies as a Singapore-based investment for offices with complex multi-jurisdiction mandates. The SFC in Hong Kong is likely to advance its family office regulatory framework consultation toward a formal licensing or registration regime, which would impose new compliance obligations on single-family offices currently operating outside the SFC's licensed perimeter. Principals who have not yet engaged legal counsel on their Hong Kong operating structure should do so before any formal regime is gazetted.

In Dubai, DIFC's Family Wealth Centre is expected to expand its structuring toolkit with new trust and foundation products designed for South and Southeast Asian families, responding directly to demand from principals who want Gulf-based booking without sacrificing common law protections. On the private markets side, watch for increased secondary market activity in Asia-Pacific private equity as the 2021–2022 vintage funds approach their distribution windows — this will create both liquidity opportunities and pricing benchmarks for offices assessing their existing book. The Ocorian 2025 report is best read not as a final word but as a calibration tool: use it to identify where your office's priorities diverge from the peer consensus, and interrogate whether that divergence is deliberate or simply unexamined.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the MAS 13O and 13U tax incentive schemes for family offices in Singapore?

MAS Section 13O and 13U are tax exemption schemes for single-family offices managing funds in Singapore. The 13O scheme applies to onshore funds with a minimum AUM of S$10 million, while 13U covers larger funds with a minimum AUM of S$50 million. Both schemes require the family office to employ a minimum number of investment professionals and deploy a portion of AUM into qualifying Singapore-based investments. Eligibility criteria were tightened in 2023, and annual compliance reviews are mandatory.

How does Singapore's Variable Capital Company structure benefit family offices?

The VCC, introduced by MAS in 2020, allows family offices to establish a single corporate entity with multiple sub-funds, each with segregated assets and liabilities. This is particularly useful for offices managing assets across different family branches, asset classes, or risk profiles. The VCC can be used for both open-ended and closed-ended strategies, supports re-domiciliation from other jurisdictions, and qualifies for Singapore's fund tax exemption schemes.

What is the Hong Kong Open-ended Fund Company and how does it compare to the Singapore VCC?

The OFC is Hong Kong's equivalent of the VCC, introduced under SFC oversight. It allows for umbrella structures with segregated sub-funds and is eligible for the SFC's unified fund exemption regime. The OFC is particularly suited to offices with Greater China investment mandates and benefits from Hong Kong's double tax treaty network. Compared to the VCC, the OFC operates under SFC regulation rather than MAS, making it the preferred structure for offices where the primary regulatory relationship is with Hong Kong.

How should family offices prepare for next-generation succession in light of the 2025 report findings?

The Ocorian 2025 report recommends that family offices treat succession as an investment governance issue, not solely a family dynamics issue. Practical steps include formalising the investment policy statement, establishing a written ESG framework that reflects next-gen preferences, stress-testing the existing allocation against a scenario where 20% is reallocated to impact strategies, and introducing the next generation to the investment committee in an advisory capacity before primary control transfers. Engaging an independent governance adviser to facilitate this process is increasingly common among Asia-Pacific family offices.

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